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Herein lies the big secret to making post-holiday party cleanup easy: Make less trash to begin with! :P
That's my plan for tonight: My friend Traci and I are throwing a green-as-possible holiday party at her place, and not only have I baked an eco-gingerbread house, I'll be toting over my gifts in a reusable bag. We're shunning the one-use stuff altogether: All the organic drinks and yummies will be served in real glasses and on real plates with real flatware -- a choice that also has the nice side benefit of upping the classiness factor of our party.
Inevitably though, there'll be some waste at the party -- uneaten cookies, discarded wrappers, sloshed wine, and the like. How to greenly deal with the aftermath of the holidays:
Wrapping materials: Easiest way to deal with all the discarded wrapping paper and bows? Reuse them! Not only will you save stuff from the landfill, you'll always have materials at hand to wrap a last minute gift in the coming year, reduce your need to buy new wrapping materials, AND save yourself some cash.
So fold or roll up the papers and tissues neatly to tuck away, and throw all the ribbons into a shoe box. To the right's a present I wrapped with a bus map, topped with a reused ribbon!
Got a whole bunch of cardboard boxes from presents you got in the mail? Turn them into pretty DIY frames for the holiday pictures you want to display. The packing peanuts that came in those boxes, by the way, can be dropped off at your nearest UPS store, or at many other locations you can find just by typing in "packing peanuts" and your zip into earth911.org.
Gifts: Even if you really hated that thoughtless or tasteless gift, don't just send it to the landfill! I mean, there's that regifting option Blogher contributing editor Nina Smith has covered so throughly....
Plus, you can always donate stuff not suitable for regifting. Or if the present really isn't even worthy of donation, maybe you can take it apart and recycle it into something new! We should hold a "Transform crappy gift into cute gift" contest here on Blogher, complete with pictures --
Food: If you threw a party, you probably have leftovers -- which I always think is a great reason to throw a smaller, more chilled-out get together for a few of your friends who're recovering from the holiday festivities. But for the stuff that still doesn't get eaten, try your best to compost them -- whether it's in your own composting set up or in your city green bins (depending on where you live).
A creative idea for those non-recyclable potato chip wrappers: Turn them into wrapping paper! Check out a gift I wrapped for my friends Paul and Margaret. Pretty sleek, yes?
Miscellaneous: Instead of just sweeping the entire mess into a big black garbage bag, take a couple minutes to separate and recycle. Check your city's recycling services for a quick lesson on what can and can't be recycled; here's the list of blue binnable stuff for LA peeps.
Happy holidays!
BlogHer Contributing Editor Siel also blogs for the Los Angeles Times at Emerald City, and at greenLAgirl.com.
